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ISLAMABAD, June 13: Property tycoon Malik Riaz put a fourth question to the chief justice on a private television channel on Wednesday.

Mr Riaz said: “During the period when the CJ was deposed, was it not a part of the deal that no messenger will be entertained by the team [which was running the campaign for reinstatement of the CJ].”

The angry property dealer had put three questions to Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry the previous day: “ (i) He [chief justice] should explain how many times he met me in the dead of the night and whether or not Arsalan Iftikhar was present there? (ii) Was the chief justice not present at several meetings that took place at the residence of my business partner Ahmed Khalil where the prime minister and a sitting judge of the Supreme Court were also present? and (iii) I ask the chief justice to hold the Quran and clarify how long he has known about the role of Dr Arsalan and why he failed to take notice until now?”

When the anchors asked him how he had been blackmailed by the Justice Chaudhry’s son, he said: “Arsalan had approached my business partner Ahmed Khalil and later he was in contact with my son-in-law. “My son-in-law used to pay him the amounts he demanded to settle the cases but it was never done and I was frustrated and had to come up with all these evidences.”

Mr Riaz said it was a shock for him that although Aitzaz Ahsan, the lawyer, had talked to the CJ about alleged involvement of his son in a financial scam, he continued to hear cases involving the Bahria Town.

Malik Riaz disclosed that one “Hakeem Wahab used to visit my residence and often told me that my cases would be settled by the CJ”.

Hakeem Wahab, according to Riaz, was a spiritual healer [Pir] of the CJ’s family and had accompanied the CJ to the United States for an award ceremony.

The tycoon claimed that Arsalan Ikftikhar had been given a suite at the Balochistan House the other night, adding that Interior Minister Rehman Malik had provided him the rooms on directives of Supreme Court Registrar Dr Faqir Hussain.

Malik Riaz further said that PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan “purchased some 135,000 shares of Attock Refinery at a cost of Rs10 per share. He never allows establishment of educational institutions in his constituency”.

“Nisar and Khawaja Asif are worried by development carried out by me in their constituencies. It has become an eyesore for them,” added Malik Riaz.